Dear Reader:

Monday night I had one of those (interrupted) sleeping episodes that made me wake up (for whatever reason) and then struggle to return to Nod-land.

And so what did I think about? …Eva Cate and her buildings made from story books and the question of why different levels or floors in houses and all types of buildings are called “stories.“( As in… I live on the first story, or second story, etc.)  Of course then my imagination took off and I thought how wonderful it would be to live, not on a story, but in a story.

This thought was quickly followed by which story would I like to live in? Any story, I thought that was made into a movie with Robert Redford starring in it….but then I couldn’t think of one story/movie where he plays the romantic lead that ends happily ever after.

It certainly didn’t happen in “The Way We Were” …..but all of us young girls (drooling over Redford in the packed, dark theaters back then) wanted to name any future sons Hubbell….Somehow I forgot that name by the time I could have used it. (I am sure Walsh and Tommy are eternally grateful for that lapse of memory!)

It certainly wouldn’t have ended well in the blockbuster “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” since Redford’s character ended up…well, dead. But at least I could have ridden the bike while “raindrops kept falling on my head.”

The Great Gatsby….”Bobby” was looking fine in that movie…but, nope, actually no one came out of the story well and/or alive.

 I finally found one story I could live in with Bobby and have a happy ending….though, like Glenn Close in the movie…I would have to wait a lifetime to do so….then again, some people are worth waiting a lifetime for….

When I woke up yesterday all groggy and wondering what time it was…I immediately remembered my jumbled thoughts from the night before and looked up the origin for story- as defined by a building floor or level. 

There were lots of different ideas but this one response from Word Detective combined several theories and was the best overall response I felt.

Dear Word Detective: Why are the heights of buildings measured in “stories”? I can’t for the life of me find any connection between “story” and anything to do with measurement, architecture, or city planning anywhere? 

That’s because there is no clear logical connection between “story” meaning “tale” and “story” meaning “level of a building.” But they are indeed related. There are just a few steps involved. So sit back and hang on for the ride. 

The word “story” itself, as well as its usual meaning of “a narrative of fictitious events,” comes from the Greek “historia,” which meant “an account of events.” The same “historia,” as you might suspect, also gave us the English word “history.” Now, the difference between a “story” and a “history” is, or at least is supposed to be, the difference between truth and fiction.

But interestingly enough, the original meaning of “story” in English was “factual narrative,” and only after that “just the facts” sense was gradually taken over by the word “history” in the 17th century did “story” come to primarily mean a made-up or largely fictional creation. One place where the original “factual account” sense of “story” is still used is in phrases such as “newspaper stories,” which, of course, strive to be fact, not fiction.

One of the many uses of the word “story” back in the 14th century was to mean a picture or painting, or a series of paintings, that illustrated a narrative. Such “stories” are still found in the form of stained glass windows depicting Biblical events in many churches.

Most authorities believe that the use of “story” to mean “one level of a building” arose as an architectural term for the practice of placing rows of such “story pictures” or narrative sculptures across the facades of ancient buildings. Such constructions, known at first by the Latin name “historia,” eventually came to be called “stories,” and by the 14th century the term was being used to mean one whole level of the building itself.

Apparently as evidence of this practice, the authors of the Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins cite the fact that they once visited a Swiss-style hotel decorated along these lines in Lake Placid, New York. (Each floor was tricked out with a large hand-lettered slogan, such as “The only way to multiply happiness is to divide it.”)

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The longer I live the more I am aware that everything in life is a story….even inanimate objects can tell their stories through humans….like “If these walls could talk or those doors could speak…what stories they could tell.” Since they can’t, we humans blessed with imagination, must tell the stories for them.

So until tomorrow….remember:  “God made man because He loves stories.” Elie Wiesel

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Jakie was telling stories the other night through singing in the ‘mike’ making up all kinds of strange sounds and words….in his mind he was telling us a story and was very happy doing so.

*Please keep Linda, Libby’s sister, (in the light blue scarf) in your prayers. Yesterday she had surgery on one knee  and soon she will need to do the other. Linda’s family nickname is “Duck” and she is adored by her family. The Ya’s love her too…in fact, we are all “quackers” over her.

• Look who was a month old yesterday! (And Caleb, Brooke’s grandson, wasn’t even due until the middle of January.) Proud dad Riley, finds it hard to be gone from his little son….he adores him.